Tuesday, May 10, 2011

By decentralizing access to economic power and economic independence, citizens would control government, not vice versa. Everyone's faith, spiritual life and political beliefs would be respected and guaranteed by the rule of law. National "sovereignty" would be built from the ground-up, based on securing the inherent sovereignty of every individual and the sanctity of the family unit. With "ownership-sharing" economics surpassing politics in the daily lives of its citizens, economic power would be widely diffused and the power of the state would be subordinated to the power of the people.

This would institutionalize the main purposes of a just government as expressed by George Mason, the father of the American Bill of Rights, who authored the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which declared that "all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights . . . namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

A critical omission in Jefferson's authorship of the Declaration of Independence was Mason's (following John Locke) heavy emphasis on access to the "means of acquiring and possessing property" as the ultimate source of personal economic sovereignty and all human rights. This omission, some suggest due to Jefferson's moral ambiguity over slavery, can and has led every nation since the beginning of the industrial revolution away from broad-based ownership of wealth-producing assets as the source of personal self-determination and the ultimate check against the potential abuses of concentrated public and private power. The constitution of the Abraham Federation can correct this flaw.

The proposal for an Abraham Federation, first offered in 1978, is today more timely than ever.

Is it possible to create a nation in the Middle East that accommodates Arabs and Israelis? Could a state be structured to avoid becoming either a "Palestinian state," or an "Islamic state," or a "Jewish state," or simply an extension of Israel or any bordering Arab state? Could such a state offer a new form of sovereignty to stir the hearts and dreams of Arabs and Jews? Could it avoid, on the one hand, the anarchy, tyranny and injustices of other states in the world, and, on the other, the totalitarian regimes and genocidal societies from which Jews escaped to what is now Israel?

In short, could a new country be created that could guarantee peace through justice for all?

The idea for such a country may first seem far-fetched. But with a re-examination of the conflict, it becomes surprisingly workable. And with the added boost of a dynamic economy focused on creating new wealth and new owners of that wealth, the idea of a new nation becomes downright irresistible.